Since its founding in 1969 by William Packard, The New York Quarterly has been devoted to excellence in the publication of a unique and fervent cross-section of contemporary American poetry regardless of school of thought, style, or genre. Our only concern is to focus on the craft that underlies effective poetry writing. The New York Quarterly features works by both known and emerging poets. The NYQ Craft Interviews present the views of some of our most outstanding poets on the general subjects of style, prosody and technique. The issues are rounded out with an essay or two on the subject of contemporary American poetry that is both accessible and meaningful to readers, poets, students, and teachers of poetry alike. NYQ 9 features a craft interview with John Ashbery; an editorial tribute to Lucille Medwick; "Poetry and the Nobel Prize" by Layle Silbert; "The Poet as Lyricist: Alan Jay Lerner" by Elaine Edelman; an essay, "Alliteration," by George T. Wright; photos of Blackburn, Williams, Aldan, Bly, Moore, and Bob White Jr.; and poetry by Lucille Medwick, Linda Krenis, Duane Niatum, David Ignatow, Clarence Major, Hugh Seidman, Charles Bukowski, E. Di Pasquale, Erica Jong, Ruth Lisa Schechter, John Guenther, Norman Stock, Tanikawa Shuntaro, Colette Inez, Andre Sedriks, Hannelore Hahn, Al Dewey, Rainer Maria Rilke, Siv Cedering Fox, Cynthia Macdonald, Michael Newman, Stephen Ajay, Arthur Levin, Emilie Glen, Ernest J. Oswald, Rush Rankin, Martha Collins, Cornelia P. Draves, Laurence Goldstein, and Annie Dillard.